Quote:
The ONLY reason this type of hypothesis (more guns=more violence) doesn't get a large amount of discussion in most circles is because of the direct relation of having to declare, in one loud voice, that all people are crazy, immature, uncontrollabe, impulsive, murdering maniacs the minute they get hold of a gun.
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i think this is a straw man.
you could equally state the obvious---that "normal" is more a zone than a state and that anyone can snap, given an adequately dense adverse situation. which seems a far more sensible position than the one you outline, dk. if that's the case, then the question shifts to one of availability of weapons---which remain neutral in themselves. availability, the advantages and disadvantages of the present level availability, the risks involved (that one can talk about coherently), and whether those risks are worth bearing.
problem with that line is that the opponents of gun control could well loose.
your argument above is a straight reversal of claims that in other contexts i have criticized you for implicitly making--that guns are magical objects the possession of which makes you politically free--which, pushed a little, imputes agency to an inanimate object. so it is curious to me that you would reject that interpretation in one set of contexts and embrace its mirror image in another.
the problem with the argument i make above is simply that the question it raises devolves onto another--the relative liklihood of such situations occurring. it seems to me there is no way to know that. so then the question would shift onto the point i raised in the earlier post.